In June, Amazonian hero Wonder Woman will make her on-screen debut. Itll be a big moment in the comic book movie-verse but also for gender parity in filmmaking.
The movie is helmed by Patty Jenkins, of Monster fame, and its the first live-action project with a $100 million budget for the director. In fact, its only the fourth-ever film in that price range led by a woman , including Ava DuVernays forthcoming adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, and Niki Caros recently announced Mulan update .
As a point of reference, four films cost more than $200 million last year , with several more just below that mark, including Finding Dory, Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Jungle Book, Warcraft and Independence Day: Resurgence.
Despite the range of subjects falling into the big-budget category, its a longstanding boys club, with few opportunities for women directors even those most interested in typically higher-grossing genres. So for directors like Karyn Kusama, who helmed The Invitation, Jennifers Body and the 2000 Sundance Film Festival darling Girlfight, smaller projects provide opportunities to explore riskier subjects, to sharpen writing skills, and to tell stories that are potent and contained.
Which is why, when she was invited to participate in XX, an anthology of short horror films directed by women and starring women as the stories heroes as opposed to hapless, slashed-off victims Kusama was glad for the opportunity.
I think that theres something about short films that just kind of keeps your muscles sharp, Kusama told The Huffington Post over the phone. Its sort of like running a 10k while you prepare for a marathon. I dont get to run many marathons. I dont get to make many features. Its not like thats something I can just snap my fingers and make happen. So for me, it was a way to stay nimble and keep telling stories, and even create the story, but have it be a slightly more manageable scale for everyone involved.
Kusamas contribution to the anthology, which had its world premiere at Sundance on Jan. 22 and enjoyed a limited release soon after, is a riff on Rosemarys Baby, which she calls a core text of filmmaking. In her version, Rosemary Woodhouse is a woman with a 17-year-old son who, as his 18th birthday approaches, begins behaving violently, as though possessed.
The Rosemary Woodhouse character in Rosemarys Baby is quite helpless, a kind of infuriating, domesticated pet. Femininity itself is used against her, Kusama said. And I just wanted to imagine a world where the femininity, the vulnerability, becomes the strength. The femaleness becomes the strength, not the weakness.
Kusama emphasizes that portrayals of mothers especially in horror films too often take the Psycho approach, characterizing any kind of motherly strength as perverse and deforming.
I am a mother now, and Im a mother to a son, and I want him to go into the world a feminist. I want him to go into the world with compassion for humanity, Kusama said. I just know I have so much to teach my child. And I just feel kind of like, what would our world be without mothers? What would our world be without mother love? I dont think wed have a world.
Among the anthologys other contributors are stop-motion animator Sofia Carrillo, Riot Girls director Jovanka Vuckovic, Southbound director Roxanne Benjamin, and first-time director Annie Clark, aka rock musician St. Vincent.
These directors are among a bevy of women filmmakers interested in horror in working within the genres traditions, or in subverting them to better fit their own views. Since 2014, several woman-led horror features have left their mark, including Jennifer Kents The Babadook, Lucile Hadihalilovis Evolution, and Julia Ducournaus Raw. And women directors are proliferating among the short film-making set, too; at last years Nitehawk Shorts Festival , for which HuffPost was a media sponsor, bloody crime flicks and mysterious stories of witches were highlights of the slate .
These stories, and those anthologized in XX, showcased the sensibilities of their makers, demonstrating the point that their movies neednt be categorized as womens films, but, rather, great films made by women.
A lot of the films I think you could argue are particularly female in their vision. And theyre just turning out to be really good, Kusama said. That, to me, means theres a kind of awakening of the general publics attention toward this concept of the female voice, the female lens. And I think thats just wonderful, because it means we get so many different visions of the world that we didnt have before.
For Clark, who describes herself as a storyteller by nature, that vision means blurring the lines between horror and humor. Her addition to the anthology, The Birthday Party, involves a woman dressing up her recently deceased husband in a bear costume, to conceal his death until after her daughters birthday party.
To me, the saddest part of the movie is the one that makes me cackle with laughter, Clark told HuffPost.
Now that weve gotten this first female-led anthology off the ground, Id love for us to imagine and create a world where more of these films can exist, and women can actually pay their bills.
- Karyn Kusama
Elaborating on the fine line between fear and amusement, she said, you have the same emotional exorcism, which is build up, build up, build up, tension, and very quick, sudden release. It sounds like Im describing an orgasm. So many things work this way. Its the same with comedy. Tension, punchline ... where are they going with this? Oh, they land it, theres the punchline. Theres the release. Theyre very linked, I would say.
Unlike the other directors in XX, Clark has never directed a feature-length film although she plans to in the future. For her, directing a short was a launching pad for future filmmaking projects a common trajectory for those exploring the storytelling medium for the first time.
For Benjamin whos become somewhat of a horror anthology expert, between her work on Southbound and V/H/S the shorter form has merits that she says feature-length films might not. Her contribution to the anthology, Dont Fall, is about four friends who discover a mysterious cave painting while camping in the desert. The visitors are glib about the cultural significance of the painting, and the land in general, and their glibness comes at a cost.
Youve got these privileged people coming in who just tromp all over another culture without thinking about it, because they think everything is for them. But what if the land fights back? Benjamin told HuffPost. If you get into a feature-length version of that, then you have to start explaining why this is happening. The thing that always feels the weakest in any horror movie is when you get into the explanation of why this is happening, rather than just letting it unfold.
A lot of shorts in the genre space tend to be morality tales, she continued. If you think of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, they work because of the length that they are. These stories dont necessarily hold as features, but they work in a short format. If you tried to put that into a feature format, it would start to get pedantic.
So, while Benjamins film differs from Clarks and Kusamas, each director voiced merits of the short film genre, and gratitude for the opportunity to work on the project. But, Kusama expressed hope that the anthology would be a springboard, for future, better-paying work, and proof that women-led films are diverse and engaging.
Now that weve gotten this first female-led anthology off the ground, Id love for us to imagine and create a world where more of these films can exist, and women can actually pay their bills, she said.
I do think its harder to tell female stories without getting put into some kind of fantasy box. Other peoples fantasies about what women should look like and sound like, Kusama continued. But once you see stories that actually portray complicated women and Ill go a step further and say portray complicated people generally were just excited by that. I actually think audiences are starving for it.
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